A Perfect Body - The facts about the fiction

I am going to be brutally honest, if you are doing my workouts and visiting my site because you are on a quest to have the perfect body then you are in the wrong place. Fit at Home Mom is about being healthy and fit (hence the title) and does not promote one single obscure body image as the promised result for each individuals efforts. The fact is the "perfect body"  DOES NOT EXIST and those who go seeking to obtain it often end up wasting large amounts of money, time and energy. The perfect body is subject to the statutes, ideals and limitations which society sets, or in more modern times, media and entertainment seem to be the biggest influence.

By today's standard many women have a desire to look like this....

In the 1950's women wanted to look this this...

During the Renaissance beauty was portrayed using what today would be deemed "plus size" women:

I found this amusing. It is a magazine add from around the 1920's to 30's. This advertisement is not for some slimming shake or diet pill it is for a product to help women put on weight! Can you imagine something like this in today's Vogue or even Women's Health!

The point is, societies requirements for setting standards is flawed and it's like following the flight pattern of a bumble bee, it's buzzing all over the map and rarely remains in one place.

Unfortunately society has only gotten worse with it's standards and it's subsequent methods of promoting those views concerning the human body. In today's modern world society is able to tell us this is what is attractive or sexy...

However few people know that this picture below was the original taken before photoshop.

 * Note: I personally see nothing wrong with this original photo, there is no need to change this woman's body!

     What just kills me is how many women out there are striving to look like the ones they see in magazines but the truth is the models in the magazines don't even look like their own pictures! It just makes my stomach turn and if I am being completely honest it down right makes me furious.

 I am the mother of 3 beautiful girls and I fear the onslaught of skewed messages promoting a "beautiful body" image that are thrown their way even as little kids. Because of firsthand experience in watching a sister fight an eating disorder I have become very sensitive to media, images and even the language I use around my children when it comes to weight and body image. We do not use the word Fat in our household, #1 because there really is no need for it, why is there ever any reason to call someone fat? It is hurtful and no good ever comes from it.  #2 the word Fat is so lose in terms of what one deems fat. For example, I look at a picture like this one below and see absolute beauty !

This is my sweet 5 year old Ava. She has a smile that can light up a room. She is kind and compassionate but also a very passionate and spirited child. She will do amazing things in life because she is divine within, just as every little boy or girl is and we have striven very hard to teach each of our children this principle.

 I have always been very careful with my explanations as to why I workout or feed our family they way I do. I have always said it is about being healthy and I do not talk about weight loss or anything like that in front of my kids and have tried to cut such talk all together because I truly feel the focus should be on overall health, not weight. If you focus on being healthy and fit then eventually your weight will fall into the place it should be. However even with all my careful stepping a few months ago Ava suddenly stopped eating her lunch at school. I packed her lunch every day and each day there would be hardly a nibble. I asked her what was going on and she simply said she didn't like it. She is a very picky eater to begin with so we worked on finding healthy foods that she did like. But when this behavior persisted I sat her down and had a heart to heart where she revealed to me  a boy in her class repeatedly said she was FAT. Goodness gracious, since when do 5 year old children have any true sense of what the correct weight is? My heart was broken, I ached deeply for my daughter and I cried with her because all it took was one harsh and repeated comment to send her into what could have been an unhealthy eating spiral at the tender age of 5. I was also sad for that little boy. What kind of environment is he growing up in that he would even think to call a little girl fat? What is he hearing at home? What could possibly be said by his mother or to his mother? I don't know but unfortunately I think it is probably the "norm" these days.

If we want to teach the future generation what healthy really is, and what beautiful is we need to start with ourselves. We are the example and we have the chance to change the standard! But wait isn't this a fitness website, isn't this program all about shedding pounds and losing inches? Obviously I am someone who believes in maintaining a healthy weight, but it is not born from a desire to look like a super model. It comes from a drive to be healthy, to feel alive and energetic and be the best that I can be. I would be lying if I said I've never looked in the mirror and thought "man I look flabby" and "wow what I wouldn't give to look like that model". Imagine what being 5'3" and gaining 70 pounds during pregnancy can do to ones body! So of course I have done that to myself, but it stops there. Whenever I started in on all that nonsense I reminded myself that my self worth could not be determined or altered with my physical appearance. I also have a husband who drove that same message into my head whether I wanted to hear it or not. I love him for it and I am lucky. So yes, is it important to get rid of excess inches and fat? Definitely, but we need to be careful in what we determine is our excess. What I deem excess on my body will not be the same for the next person. This is why it is dangerous for me to look at a Victoria secret model and say "I want that". The fact is no matter how much weight I lose I would NEVER look like them. I am 5 foot 3 and have a thicker bone structure and because of all my competitive swimming as well as genetics I have broad and "bulky" shoulders. It's just the way I am built. I also have a VERY short torso, we are talking  like 3 inches of space between the bottom of my rib cage and the top of my hips.So the long lean slim hour glass stomach is not really in my cards like it is for some of those models. 

So when you start setting goals for weight loss and really I prefer to think of it as a fitness goal and leave out the term weight loss, there are a few things I want you to do.

#1 - Stop comparing yourself. - I realize this is like trying to tell a flower to stop smelling like a flower, as women comparing things and ourselves just seems to be part of who we are but you have got to learn to control it. It has taken, and will continue to take, years of me training myself to stop looking at others, either what they look like, what they have or their lifestyle and not think " they have it better". It can be a daily battle for some people but it is a battle worth fighting. Because those who look longingly at others will only find emptiness when they look at themselves. Concentrate on your good qualities, concentrate on your blessings in life, a thankful heart is a happy heart!

#2 - Educate yourself on what your body type is. - I am sure just about everyone has heard of the terms "bannana shape, apple shape, pear shape" and so forth. The fact is everyone is built different and it is important for you to understand your particular body type so you do not set unobtainable standards, like a 5'3" swimmer trying to look like a 5'9" model.

#3 - Determine your BMI - I give this advice as a lose standard because I have yet to find a BMI calculator which includes a way to factor in muscle mass effectively and we all know if you are made of pure muscle you are going to weigh more then you look. But as a general guideline a BMI calculator will give you a healthy weight range to shoot for and ones like this one here, help you set your caloric intake to fit your goals and activity level.

#4 Learn to love yourself for who you are - Self improvement can be a slippery slope. What can start out as a simple desire to lose some weight or feel better can quickly turn into a quest to obtain perfection. For example, I am going to get personal here and be honest about one of my struggles. I think we all know with weight loss often (if not always) comes loss of breast tissue. It is a cruel fact of life, and for someone who has never been well endowed it doesn't take much to give me flat pancakes for breasts. This is a struggle for me because I have always had issues with not feeling feminine, because of things like my body shape as well as not being able to have long hair, it has always been short! So not having much for breasts just adds to it all for me. Now we live in a day where I can fairly easily fix that which I do to an extent, it's called padded bras! But there is a huge push out there to go under the knife for a more permanent fix. It's hard to not do it when I see so many people having this surgery. I would love to have breasts again but, I hesitate. Why? Because if I get it done I may love the way I look in the mirror but will it make me love MYSELF more? There is a big difference between loving the image in the mirror and loving yourself. I also hesitate because I don't want to feel like I am going under the knife to fix what society has taught me is an "imperfection" and conform to what I have been programmed to think is beautiful.  I want to make it clear that I am not condemning breast augmentations, it is a very personal choice for every one, one I have considered over and over again but because of many factors including the ones I just listed I have never gone through with it because I have yet to feel comfortable with my reasons for wanting the surgery. For those of you who have had this done or are planning on doing it I am not saying you have conformed or done something wrong, these are just my personal feelings about me and how I would feel about myself because only I know my own heart and motives and the same goes for you. So please I am not sharing this to offend anyone, I have several women very close to me who have had this surgery and I am more than happy for them, somewhat jealous, and it hasn't changed how I feel about or the way I view them one bit! But I wanted to give a real life an example of what I am talking about here and it isn't always about weight, I ask myself, will bigger breasts, or let me correct that, actually having some breasts (hahaha oh but it's not that funny) make me love myself more or am I doing it so society will love me more? Will losing 50 pounds make you love yourself more? Will toning your abs and arms make you love yourself more? That is a personal question for everyone and there is no right or wrong answer but its important to ask yourself. Try to develop your own standards for beauty and forget what society says is beautiful because as I have shown above the only constant about the worlds opinion is that it changes.  
My personal goal, is to eventually love the woman I have shaped myself into, in all forms, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Confidence is not something that can be given to you, it is something earned through personal experience which means everyone will gain confidence in different ways. So whatever state you are in right now, whether it is 50 pounds overweight, or 20 pounds underweight (like the lady in the ad at the beginning of this post) Decide to love who you are. Start with finding the positive things about yourself, are you kind? are you a talented pianist? are you a good listener? do you have a beautiful smile? Find your positives, you all have plenty. Then once you love yourself for your positives you can commit to altering what you deem may be a negative either physically or otherwise. Life is about progression. How boring would it be if we weren't constantly striving to be better, to become better today then we were yesterday. Mortal life is beautiful and you only have one so don't waste it hating yourself.   Also for those of you with little children or specifically daughters, how would you feel if they started to refer to themselves as fat or ugly? It would break your heart because any mother would hate to hear her child fall into self loathing. So why is it any different for you? You are someones daughter, someones friend, wife, sister, aunt, granddaughter, mother and you mean something. You are worth more than you will ever know to the people around you and to the world and the sooner you realize it the better. My sister has placed the word Divinity written in simple small script where she can see it everyday. This sister has struggled with self image her entire life, which is interesting to me because I have always wanted to look like both my sisters, they are both gorgeous physically but even more so on the inside. And while I grew up aspiring to look even the littlest bit like my sister, she was unable to see and accept what I , and countless others saw. Still to this day my sister fights her battle with body image each and everyday and I am so proud of her for never giving up, she is such a wonderful example to me. She chose the word divinity to always remind her of what she carried inside her, what source she could draw strength from and what her potential could be. So if you take anything from this post let it be that, you are worth something, you were born into this world with a divine light inside you and instead of letting the circumstances of life diminish or douse that light it is your job to nourish it and let it grow so in the end you love yourself and who you have become.

Remember beauty starts within!